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Saturday, January 8, 2011

A fantastic read on public alerting and crisis communications

Hello everyone !

I've downloaded a fantastic document that pretty much sums up the continuum between public alerting and crisis communications and features some pretty good analysis of the use of mobile devices and social media.

Here's an excerpt that I find very interesting that summarize the alerting process:

The Warning Process: Message Receipt and Response by the Public. Below is a list of steps that the affected population takes during a crisis or emergency following the receipt of an alert and/or warning message.

· Receive the warning—People must physically receive a warning.
· Understand the warning—Once people receive a warning they must be able to process the message and understand what it means.
· Believe the warning is credible—People must believe that the source of the warning is reliable and the threat could materialize.
· Confirm the threat—People must take steps in order to verify that the threat described in the warning is real.
· Personalize the threat—People must believe that the threat is something that can potentially affect them.
· Determine whether or not protective action is needed—People need to decide if they need to
take action.
· Determine whether protective action is feasible—People need to decide if they are able to take action.
· Decide if you have the resources to take protective action—Finally people need to have the resources to actually do what is required.